


Sign-on Bonus

by mayachain



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2642858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames looks as tired as Arthur is pretending not to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sign-on Bonus

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hazard Pay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/146137) by [mayachain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain). 



Arthur isn’t sure what to make of this. It’s not a surprise that Eames has stuck around for the last part of the job, the part that Dom no longer had the head to think about once he passed security, that Yusuf didn’t feel was his responsibility, that Saito expected the people he’d hired to do and that Ariadne never knew as a necessity. Eames has always excelled at covering bases – both his own and, provided he held no ill feelings toward his co-workers, those of his team. While Arthur is convinced that Eames tagged along more for the sake of Dom’s children and Ariadne than for Dom himself… He’s not surprised that Eames stuck around until they could be sure that Robert Fischer’s resolve to end Fischer-Morrow would outlast the dream.

What _does_ surprise him is that Eames hasn’t bolted the minute the job was done. So far, he’s stated, “That it, then,” has leaned over and closed Arthur’s laptop, but he has yet to grab his ready-packed suitcase, give Arthur the barest of nods and let himself out the door. When a minute has passed and it still hasn’t happened, doesn’t look like it will, Arthur turns around in his chair and looks Eames over.

The man looks as exhausted as Arthur would feel if he allowed himself to feel anything yet. But for all that they’ve been in this area for weeks and the job is finished, he is – he and Eames are – still in a strange place and not somewhere Arthur deems completely safe, so he can’t.

 _He should sleep,_ Arthur thinks. _**We** should sleep._ The thought of Eames making an entire journey to some anonymous location and then passing out in a faceless – albeit most likely luxurious – hotel room is suddenly more than Arthur can bear. 

Maybe it’s because he’s lost Dom, not that he’s at all sorry about not having seen nor seeing Dom for a while. Maybe it’s because they’ve managed not to kill one another during four weeks of being constantly in each other’s company without any kind of mitigating influence of others. If Arthur’s honest – and what use is he to himself unless he tries his damndest to be – his contemplations of inflicting injury on Eames’ person hadn’t even lasted long past the first day.

For a brief moment, he thinks about getting a room in whichever hotel Eames will choose, but honeymoon suite or high-end bed-and-breakfast, he needs _real_ sleep – sleep Arthur knows from two years of failures he won’t get anywhere but at home.

“Come on,” he says, picking up his laptop and the Fischer files and his own coat. Without thinking too hard about what he’s doing, he grabs Eames by the arm and barely lets him snatch up his suitcase as he drags him out of the makeshift office, into a cab, and 15 minutes later into the apartment he bought from the cut from the fourth job he was ever on under an almost real name.

.


End file.
